Skip to footer
Trust
The Monitor's View

Iran-US deal: A model of trust-building?

As world leaders convene at the United Nations this month, Iran and the United States show how nations can focus on what unites them.

|
AP
From left, Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz walk from a Qatar Airways flight that brought them from Iran to Qatar, Sept. 18.. Five prisoners sought by the U.S. in a swap with Iran were freed Monday and headed home as part of a deal that saw nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets unfrozen.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

The world needed this. On Monday, just as 193 nations were convening for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the United States and Iran displayed a prime example of trust-building. The two countries, whose officials rarely talk to each other, completed a prisoner swap deal and a transfer of about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue for Tehran to use on humanitarian goods.

Whether the agreement proves wise for peace remains to be seen. Yet it was wise for Iran and the U.S. to figure out – through facilitators such as Oman and Qatar – how to negotiate in good faith, relying on traits of authenticity and transparency, and a concern for each other’s interests. They focused on what unites them.

In a world now as polarized as it was during the Cold War, such bridge-building can inspire more examples of cooperation anchored on trust. In fact, the theme of the U.N. General Assembly’s 78th session is “rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity.” Without a reversal of a worldwide loss of trust in institutions, the international community may be unable to do much on climate change, poverty, conflicts, or pandemics.

“The present period of polycrisis has provided multiple tests for the concept of global trust,” observed the Edelman Trust Institute last year. “History suggests that some of the most important steps forward in global cooperation came even at moments when trust was difficult to come by, and that these joint actions helped rebuild trust.”

Edelman issues a yearly global survey of trust in institutions. In a sign of rising distrust, only one leader of the five permanent member states on the U.N. Security Council will be in New York for the General Assembly meeting: President Joe Biden speaks on Tuesday.

The U.N. is a mirror of the world, and its member states are “struggling with declining trust,” Csaba Kőrösi, the outgoing president of the General Assembly, told UN News last year. “It will be very difficult to look for ideological solutions.”

During his one-year term in office which ended in early September, Mr. Kőrösi regularly hosted “fireside chats” between diplomats and private experts, such as climate scientists, to allow fresh ideas to blossom and build up trust. The meetings were “very relaxed, very informal.” 

“Responding to humanity’s most pressing challenges demands that we work together, and that we reinvigorate inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism,” the former Hungarian diplomat told the U.N. in July.

If Iran and the U.S. can do it – even if ever so briefly and for limited results – perhaps other countries will follow.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Iran-US deal: A model of trust-building?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2023/0918/Iran-US-deal-A-model-of-trust-building
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe